Breonna Taylor ought to be alive today. She was shot and killed in a tragic mistake — and the police officers whose bullets killed her will not be tried for murder, according to a grand jury report released today. This is just. In a July 29 story, the Louisville Courier-Journal predicted today’s grand jury result. Excerpts:

But in interviews and emails, seven experienced Louisville defense lawyers who are not involved in the case — and who have an average of 37 years each in practice — say the officers should not be charged with murder or manslaughter because they had a legal right to defend themselves once her boyfriend shot at them.

Three of the attorneys are Black.

“It is unfortunate that this young lady was killed,” said Aubrey Williams, a former president of Louisville’s NAACP chapter who has spent much of his 40-year career fighting police in court.

“But for the life of me I don’t see them indicting or convicting.”

Jan Waddell, another defense lawyer who is Black and has likewise frequently tangled with police, also said Mattingly and Cosgrove are likely immune from prosecution because Kentucky law allowed them to return fire in self-defense when Mattingly was hit in the leg with a bullet fired by Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who said he didn’t know the intruders were police and thought the couple was being robbed.

“The seemingly unending list of unarmed Black men who have been and continue to be gunned down by white police officers … does not and cannot justify the return of an indictment based on revenge rather than the facts of the case and the law,” Waddell said.

Read it all. 

The central fact in the case is that the police were legally executing a no-knock raid, and Taylor’s boyfriend shot at them first. What makes it tragic is that the suspect they were looking for — Taylor’s former boyfriend, a drug dealer — was not there, and had already been detained prior to the raid. Her current boyfriend understandably feared that a criminal (maybe the thuggish old boyfriend) was breaking down their door.

I believe that no-knock raids aren’t worth the risk of things like this happening. So does Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who introduced the Justice For Breonna Taylor Act, which would ban no-knock raids at the federal level. They have been banned in Louisville since Taylor’s death. Nevertheless, the no-knock raid that resulted in Breonna Taylor’s shooting was legal — and once her boyfriend fired on the police, the shots they returned constituted self-defense. One of the three Louisville police officers was indicted for “wanton endangerment.”

[UPDATE: The Kentucky AG said the grand jury investigation found that the cops did in fact knock. — RD]

A few weeks back, Rukmini Callimachi of The New York Times published a long, deeply reported piece about the steps that led to Breonna Taylor’s death. I urge you to read it. Your heart breaks for Taylor. She could not find it within herself to break free of this no-good drug-dealing man. In the story, Callimachi mentions the officer who was today indicted for wanton endangerment. This is why:

Meanwhile, a barrage of bullets ripped into the apartment from another direction. Detective Hankison had left the formation near the door, run into the parking lot and begun firing through the covered patio door and window, according to police records.

Unlike the two officers standing in the doorway, the 44-year-old detective probably has no self-defense claim, several local officials said. The bullets he shot from the parking lot tore diagonally through Ms. Taylor’s apartment and into Apartment 3 directly behind it, where a pregnant woman and a 5-year-old were sleeping.

His behavior was reckless, the department concluded, because he shot 10 rounds blindly, and it was not directed against someone who posed an immediate threat. He was fired in June. “I find your conduct to be a shock to the conscience,” the interim police chief said in a termination letter.

Anyway, as the defense attorneys told the Louisville paper this summer, you cannot indict police officers for acting in self-defense. That’s how the grand jury — not the DA, but a grand jury — ruled today. Daniel Cameron, the Kentucky attorney general (and a black man), made the announcement. From the Courier-Journal’s reporter:

On the “mob justice” point,  Louisville is afraid of rioting tonight. It had rioting earlier this year after Taylor’s shooting, and now that no police officer will be tried for murder, there is a lot of local anxiety that the rioting will kick off again. From a Louisville resident, Denny Burk:

Protesters now chanting, “We didn’t get it, burn it down!”

Reports say that the crowd is growing in downtown Louisville.#Louisville #BreonnaTaylor pic.twitter.com/pHahW2j8MU

— Denny Burk (@DennyBurk) September 23, 2020

UPDATE: As I indicated above, the Kentucky AG said that the police did, in fact, knock before entering Taylor’s apartment.

Also look, Antifa unloading ready-made protest gear. I hope the National Guard comes out, and if Antifa starts burning, the troops use live ammo. Enough is enough:

A parked U-Haul was waiting for the crowd up the street. It contains supplies such as signs, shields, water etc. I’m not sure how people knew what it contained. Police are up ahead pic.twitter.com/qObHK3E83y

— Shelby Talcott (@ShelbyTalcott) September 23, 2020

UPDATE.2: Denny Burk has AG Cameron’s entire statement on his blog. Read it.